Another three-pane Mail.app mock-up
A month ago Joshua Bryant posted a mock-up of Mail.app 
with an Outlook / Entourage preview pane on the right.
Scott Dunlap sends in another mock-up:
Click for the full-sized image.
He writes of Joshua’s: “I think he made it too Entourage-like by making messages 2 lines. That’s probably needed for laptop usage, but this is what I want.”
Which one would you prefer if — entirely hypothetically — a clever developer were thinking of producing a hack to do this? Or would you not touch either one with a ten-foot pole?
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Tags: Apple Mail, entourage, GUI, hacks, interface, mail.app, mock-up, outlook, preview pane
March 1st, 2006 at 3:02 am
I would love to have either as an option for viewing mail, but if I had to choose I’d like the two line summary as awell as the Vetical Preview Pane.
In fact while I’m wishing, I also like the way Outlook groups the messages in the list: Todays mail listed one after the other, then a visual separator for Yesterdays mail, then amother visual separator for the day before, etc…
March 1st, 2006 at 3:57 am
I’d also prefer the two line summary, for two reasons:
1) I’m on a laptop.
2) My mail window is never the entire width of the screen.
Also, as Whitney mentioned, having the ability to group by day/date would be nice. Alternatively, proper threading–by message-id, not by subject (argh!)–would be great.
March 1st, 2006 at 4:58 am
Here Here! I second Jim Mock on the “proper threading by message-id, not by subject” matter.
Jim, perhaps you and I should submit these requests to Apple feedback.
March 1st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Maybe it’s my experience with other web apps, but I really hate that threading by date. I find it in Entourage, and it slows me down. It’s grouping is very limited, and when it doesn’t have the option I want, all I can do is shut it down. Gmail and Apple’s method seem more like what I’m after.
I don’t know, I don’t ever use a full screen for email — but I tend to agree, on my larger screen, I’d still like the one above.
March 1st, 2006 at 3:12 pm
I would rather not have 2 lines on my iMac since 20 inches is more than enough real estate.
But on my 12 inch PowerBook, I don’t think even the 2 line approach would be enough to give me 3 panes side by side.
So I’d like the option to switch between different layouts.
March 2nd, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Um, how about a Mail UI that DOESN’T needlessly waste gobs and gobs of screen real estate? A UI like, oh, I dunno… the one we have now?
March 20th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
I’m not a fan of the ‘two line’ approach because it presents an obstacle to quickly re-sorting your mail. I’m a _huge_ ‘re-sorter’. It’s so handy to sort by name, then type the first few characters of someone’s name to jump to the most recent messages by them.
Likewise, it’s great to be able to immediately sort back to reverse chronological by clicking the date column. Outlook lets you resort in two-line view, but the dropdown means two clicks, rather than one, and you also have to rationally find the sort type in the list, which is another slight delay.
I would LOVE the one line with vertical preview though :-)
Not because I’d use it on my PowerBook (I wouldn’t… resolution wouldn’t be enough) but I think it’d be cool for use with a desktop display.
April 25th, 2006 at 1:16 am
When I got my MacBook Pro, I started using Thunderbird, since I liked the side-by-side look of messages and preview pane. But, ultimately I switched back to Mail.app, since I prefer how it works (and the .mac sync is nice). But, the one thing I miss is that side-by-side look. I’d like the above mock-up — it looks the most useful to me.
September 10th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
[...] Screenshots have been floating around for a while with mockups of a three-paned Mail.app à la Outlook. [...]